The Infinite

by Patience Agbabi

  ‘That will be quite enough, Peter,’ said Mr Carter in his slow, croaky voice.

  Pete LMS stood up at his desk.

  ‘Enough? I’ve had enough! Expect us to believe all this rubbish about man-made climate change?’ We all gasped. ‘My dad says Nature does what she likes. Nothing to do with man.’

  He turned and threw my phone across the room. It crashed to the floor and the back came off.

  And what did Mr Carter do? Continued the lesson, in his own time, like nothing had happened. His droning voice went on and on but it sounded like it was in the distance.

  ‘Where are you going, Elle?’

  I hadn’t realised I’d packed my phone and yam, stood up, put my bag on my back, walked over to the door and opened it. Run round the track, I told myself. Do ten laps of the track. But instead I stood in the yellow corridor with all the thoughts spinning round my head. I closed my eyes, my body went fizzy and I leapt through time.

  SOS L

  Someone’s in trouble in 2048 and I have to save them.

  Chapter 03:00

  MC2

  At the beginning of Seventh Year, a criminal came to our school. He was a skinny black boy with clumps of hair sticking out of his head like antennae. His eyes turned up at the edges and he had an infinity tattoo on his left hand which looked like a number 8 sideways: . He wasn’t in school uniform because he was a criminal, so his trousers and top were white with graffiti all over them. I tried to read what it said but it gave me a headache. His name was MC2, the boy we’d see months later in the Time Squad video. But we didn’t know that at the time.

  Mrs C Eckler had given us investigative homework on MC2 the night before, so we could ask sensible questions. She gave us a ‘secret link’ and reminded us of our Oath of Secrecy. That’s when I found out he was a Leapling who’d committed lots of Anachronisms. Normal bad people commit crimes in their own time, but bad Leaplings steal things or kill people in the past so it’s harder to trace the crime. All these crimes are called Anachronisms. MC2 was nicknamed the Mixer of Chronology but I didn’t have time to find out what it meant because Grandma wanted me to fetch the comb and pomade.

  Mrs C Eckler smelled of perfume that day rather than Pears soap. She had her ginger hair down to her shoulders rather than piled up on her head as usual and was wearing bright blue eyeshadow. I didn’t like this. I kept thinking she was someone else who’d stolen Mrs C Eckler’s voice.

  ‘Now Seventh Year, we are EXTREMELY lucky today.’ She was pacing up and down rather than standing still, which was really distracting. ‘We have a very special visitor . . .’ I think I zoned out during her introduction, but the next thing I knew everyone was cheering like he was a pop star.

  MC2 blinked all the time. He blinked so fast you might not even notice. I think he was scared. I tried to hate him because he’d broken the law but I felt bad for him because he was scared. And he spoke in rhyme so it was more like a rap than a talk.

  ‘To the power of 2, I deliver my apology,

  I committed intricate crimes against chronology . . .’

  That word again. Chronology. I know now it means the order that things happen. MC2 was nicknamed the Mixer of Chronology because he sold things that were out of time, like DJs who used to ‘mash up records’ so the words came out backwards and sounded like another language. But I didn’t know that last year.

  ‘The making of watches and clocks is horology,

  I stole the past, so the present acknowledge me.’

  And I remembered reading online he became an expert on clocks and watches. He would go back in time to find a clock that was worth lots of money and then bring it back to the present to sell it. Then he did the opposite: he stole modern watches and sold them to rich people in the past. He didn’t make as much money that way round but liked to watch people do what-big-eyes in 1800. The wristwatch hadn’t been invented yet.

  ‘If you’re in a mess, if you’re in distress,

  send an SOS via SMS . . .’

  Lots more applause.

  And Mrs C Eckler was smiling from East to West.

  ‘Thank you for that wonderful presentation, MC2. Seventh Year have looked you up online so I’m sure they have lots of questions to ask you. But before they do, could you tell us the story of your name?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He disappeared, reappeared on the spot, his whole body blinking! Big Ben whooped, the whole class started muttering in amazement and my eyes went too big for my head. It was like leaping for a split second. How did he do it? ‘When I was a kid,’ he said, ‘I leapt before I could walk. For real. Too much energy with no place to go. Doc said ADHD and prescribed medication. But the meds didn’t work so I got sent specialist school to help me.’

  ‘One of my peer mentors said,

  “You’re a bomb ready to blast, spar.

  Channel that energy, you’ll go far.”

  ‘I put my energy into rhyme. When I started rapping, I leapt all over the stage. Here, there, everywhere. There was this brother called himself Einstein after the genius professor that hatched nuclear energy. Einstein said, “You ain’t just MC, you’re MC2.” He didn’t just mean a rapping MC. He named me after the formula: E=MC2. E’s Energy, M’s mass, C’s the speed of light. The most hyper MC on the planet.’

  I’ve heard of the original Einstein. He had the best rhyming name ever. He wasn’t a Leapling with The Gift but he must have had one in his family to get that surname. MC2 is a brilliant name because it means lots of different things at the same time.

  Mrs C Eckler thanked MC2.

  ‘Now Seventh Year, I know you have lots of questions.’

  I put my hand up immediately and she peered round the room. ‘Yes, Elle.’

  I stood up. ‘Doesn’t MC also mean Mixer of Chronology? That’s what it said online. And Master of Ceremonies?’

  ‘Yeah. Maestro. Elle, isn’t it? And Microphone Commando in hip hop and any other meaning you wannit to mean,’ he said. ‘I don’t wanna confuse no one. But words are my specialisation. I like what they can do.’

  ‘If you’re a criminal, you are a liar because you don’t want to get caught. So you could be lying to us now.’

  I sat down, embarrassed. That didn’t come out the way I wanted. I was happy and scared at the same time. I loved the way he made words sound like music but I didn’t trust him. He was a criminal. He must have told lies to escape the police.

  ‘I ain’t a crim no more, Elle. An’ I never told lies. When they caught me, I told the truth. I had to go back in time and replace everythin’ I’d stolen so I didn’t mess up history and vice versa.’

  By messing up history, he meant you had to be careful when you went back in the past in case you swatted a fly and Hitler ended up winning World War Two. We did that in Sixth Year. I stood up again.

  ‘Is it a poem about vices like greed and gluttony?’ My voice was speaking before I could stop it.

  ‘No.’ He blinked. ‘Vice versa’s same as the other way round. I also had to find all the watches I’d sold in the past and bring them back to the present.’

  ‘Did you kill anyone?’

  Mrs C Eckler brought her eyebrows down to her eyes. I think she was cross. But I had to know whether he was bad or mega bad. He smiled.

  ‘Never killed no one. Live by the knife, die by the knife.’

  I remember wishing he didn’t talk in riddles. What had knives got to do with it if he never killed anybody? Big Ben put his hand up.

  ‘If you killed your dad in the past, will you die?’

  ‘As I said . . .’ He scrunched up his eyebrows. ‘I never killed no one. But you’re right. You wouldn’t exist if you killed your dad. Your dad wouldn’t meet your mum and hatch you. It would be a time paradox. Heard of the Grandfather Paradox? Same thing. Don’t think it’s ever happened.’ He looked at Mrs C Eckler, who cleared her throat.

  ‘Could you say something about the work you do NOW?’

  But before MC2 had time to respond, Jake said: ‘Did you
ever steal watches from the future?’

  Trust Jake to ask this. He’s always in trouble and I think he was asking for criminal tips rather than to learn from someone else’s mistakes.

  ‘Yes and no.’ More riddles. ‘I committed crimes but my action’s bin erased. The future ain’t fixed like the past. You can change it.’

  I liked that idea. If you do something stupid in the future, you get another chance and another and another to make it right. You get an infinite amount of chances until it becomes the present. Then it’s the past and you can’t change it any more.

  I think MC2 liked that idea as well. He seemed to double in size.

  ‘Now,’ he said, like he was punching a hole in the present, ‘I work for the Time Squad.’

  I heard someone whisper, ‘Thought it was the Rhyme Squad,’ and Mrs C Eckler turned her head but she couldn’t see who it was.

  ‘We fight crime on the time-line. Mostly respond to SOS texts,’ he continued. ‘SOS is code for HELP. If an Anachronism’s bin committed, usually someone’s bin attacked or their life’s in danger. We get there ASAP. Most texts come from the future.’

  ‘Why?’ Jake again. There’s no hope for that boy.

  ‘There’s bin an upsurge of eco-crimes since the millennium. Peeps starting to realise they can make big cash from it. Easier to hide stuff in the future. You don’t mess up history; you’re less likely to get caught. Mostly smuggling. Meat, ivory, extinct animals. Toxic waste. The odd murder. Murderers get life imprisonment. Ad infinitum. Don’t mean 20 years, means you’re locked up till you drop down dead an’ they bury you in the prison vaults.’

  We all did what-big-eyes.

  ‘How can you work in that job when you used to be a criminal?’ Maria, and she didn’t put her hand up. Sometimes she goes out of turn in a high jump competition, gets disqualified and swears in Portuguese. She hates rules.

  ‘They gave me a choice.’ He looked round the room and everyone was holding their breath to see what he’d say next. ‘Work for us or go Young Offenders Unit. I made the right choice.’

  I stood up. ‘How old are you?’ Mrs C Eckler gave me another look.

  ‘15. And a bit. Lost count on my travels.’

  We gasped. You’re supposed to stay in full-time education till you’re 18.

  ‘I’m based in 2048. Different rules. If ya got talent, age don’t matter.’

  Mrs C Eckler cleared her throat as if to make an announcement. ‘In Term four, there’ll be a Leapling trip to 2048 where you’ll have the chance to stay at the Time Squad Centre.’ Class noise. ‘It will be the last opportunity before it moves years. As you know, the future is always in flux. But we can only take four pupils. You have to earn it. I’ll be assessing you on Effort the next two terms and make a selection based on that.’ It all went quiet. There’s fourteen of us. ‘Yes, Ben.’

  A three-second pause. Big Ben often pauses if you ask him a question, like he’s translating it into English. It’s the autism. You need to give him time to process. ‘If you wanted to report a crime . . .’ He paused again. ‘An Anachronism. What number do we text?’

  MC2 scrunched his eyebrows again. ‘2000,’ he said. ‘Easy to remember. But text me now, an’ your names, so you got Time Squad number on your memory. An’ I got yours.’ He took a massive silver phone out of his bag. ‘If you come next year, you’ll get a Chronophone. Can text past, present, future. Your TwentyTwenties should work normal.’

  Mrs C Eckler gave him another mega smile. ‘It’s usually against school rules to use phones in lessons but this is a very special occasion. Please do as MC2 says.’

  I took out my phone, which is white, and renamed it TwentyTwenty in my head because I liked the echo, typed Time Squad and the number 2000. Then my name, letter by letter: E L L E and pressed send.

  I could see Big Ben wanted to ask another question but he didn’t put up his hand. He sounded like he was going to cough. But Mrs C Eckler could see as well and encouraged Big Ben to speak.

  ‘If you got a Predictive, will you die?’

  Mrs C Eckler cleared her throat. MC2 stopped blinking and raised his eyebrows at Ben.

  ‘Leap’s done his homework,’ he said. ‘Predictives are rare, bro. VERY rare. You won’t die. Depends on context, not TEXT. Know what a Predictive is?’

  There was a long pause before Big Ben answered.

  ‘When your phone sends a text before it happens.’

  ‘Close. But it’s not your phone. Someone types a text in the future to the past. Often a call for help. You get one, you gotta act on it.’

  He looked at Big Ben for a long time before he nodded his head and smiled. Mrs C Eckler was looking at her watch.

  ‘MC2 is available to sign autographs afterwards and you’ll have the chance to ask him a question 1-2-1, if you didn’t get a chance just now.’

  I didn’t get his autograph. And I definitely didn’t want to talk 1-2-1 with a criminal. It was noisy and I needed to go outside. Walking across the quad, I got out my phone and already there was a message from Time Squad:

  MC2.

  Chapter 04:00

  OOPS

  It’s Thursday. I’m not going to school today. I’m tongue- tied.

  Tongue-tied’s not the same as not talking. Tongue-tied feels like someone’s tied up your tongue so you can’t talk. Not talking’s when you could talk but choose to stay silent.

  This might SOUND like talking but it’s thoughts in my head.

  Sometimes I think like I talk and things make sense.

  Sometimes I talk like I think and my teachers say, ‘Elle, have you swallowed a dictionary?’ and I feel embarrassed.

  And sometimes when my feelings get jumbled up my words get jumbled up too.

  Or words come out in the wrong order or on top of each other.

  Or I don’t talk at all.

  That’s when under the table is the best place to be.

  Today, I’m living under the table.

  Though the table’s higher than average, I have to bend my head down, so after a while my neck gets sore. It’s hard to sit still under the table for long. Sometimes I lie down just to stretch out. I used to like living in my bed when I felt too many emotions at once, and noises went louder and smells went stronger and I needed somewhere quiet and calm to make the panic go away, but it was difficult to keep the sheet over my head. The table is better; the white cloth hangs right down to the floor all the way round. Like being in a tent. I love that. Last year I went camping with the school and it was perfect having my own tent to sleep in. It felt like my own little house. I was SO happy.

  But today I’m angry and sad. I can cope with being sad, angry and scared, although I don’t like it. But sometimes they get mixed up, like being happy and sad and scared at the same time. Yesterday I felt happy because leaping was like doing the long jump but ten times more exciting; sad because I leapt by mistake and if I had done it on purpose I would have gone backwards to make the bad thing unhappen, NOT forwards; scared because it’s illegal to leap solo before you’re 3-leap so I might get arrested and sent to a Young Offenders Unit.

  Today I’m even tongue-tied with Grandma. I cooked her pepper soup for breakfast with yam and fish because she’s Nigerian and her leg is paining her. She has rheumatoid arthritis. I looked it up on the internet. I don’t think you can die from it but some mornings she’s in so much pain she can’t talk.

  She wasn’t talking this morning and she ate her pepper soup sitting up in bed. She wrapped a white cardigan round her head as a headtie so she could bless the food in silence. When she prays over food she looks like she’s warming her hands and she closes her eyes so tight they look like belly buttons. This morning I let Grandma squeeze my hand, which shows she liked the pepper soup. Sometimes she complains I didn’t season it well, but today was the hand squeeze.

  I ate mine at the table. I enjoyed it because it was a white meal. Yam is white unless it’s yellow. Yellow yam is much more expensive so we never buy it. I like
yam, even though it doesn’t taste of anything. It has a creamy, grainy texture. Texture is the best part of food. Fish is white unless it’s red. We only buy white fish. The fish is nice and flaky in my mouth.

  The Pastor’s wife smuggles yam from Nigeria in her suitcase and sells it on the Black Market. I used to think the Black Market was a market for black people, because white people eat potatoes and black people eat yam. Last time the Pastor’s wife visited, the handle came off her suitcase walking up the stairs because yam is much heavier than potato. It looks like tree bark. I cut off the skin, which is tough work, and washed it in salt water to get rid of the starch. Then I boiled it and added it to the pepper soup at the last minute to soak up the flavour. I always take my yam out of the pepper soup and put coconut oil on it and mash it up. You’re supposed to add palm oil but that’s red or orange and messes up the rainforest. I take the fish out, too. Mashed yam and white fish is my favourite breakfast.

  Afterwards, I cleared the table and collected Grandma’s tray, washed the dishes and sat under the table. I’ve got my tablet and my mobile phone if I want to watch something or look something up. It’s not very comfortable under the table but my hair is spongey, so it stops me banging my head on the wood. Today it’s in bunches like ears on each side of my head. If I spend the whole morning here, when I come out to make lunch I’ll feel happy.

  Someone’s knocking on the front door.

  We live on the first floor so we never answer the door. We’d rather have a ground-floor flat because Grandma struggles with the stairs but Mrs Leggett’s lived downstairs for 30 years and refuses to die so no one else can rent her flat. There used to be a doorbell but it broke and the landlord won’t fix it, so you have to knock. Some people knock so loud I think the door’s going to cave in.

  I’m sitting under the table, looking at the menu and the list of names for the trip. I’m going to be banned from the trip. I’m going to be excluded for running out of a lesson and leaping out of school and sprinting away from Mrs C Eckler, but that doesn’t stop me looking at the list of names. I like lists. Lists are like poems. Lists help me stay calm.